Tencent posted total revenue of RMB 80.6billion ($11.7million) for the third quarter with a yearly growth of 24%. Advertising, cloud service and video subscriptions have become Tencent’s main revenue growth driver while its games business suffered revenue loss under stricter regulations by authorities in mainland China to limit negative impact on children.

Blizzard announced at last week's Blizzon event that it will partner NetEase to develop Diablo Immortal, a mobile massively-multiplayer RPG based on the Diablo IP for Android and iOS devices. Despite the availability of Hearthstone across PC and mobile platforms, this is Blizzard’s first game designed exclusively for mobile devices. The company confirmed that Diablo Immortal features new storylines that connect the end of Diablo 2 and the beginning of Diablo 3, and will include iconic Diablo character classes.

Tencent announced it will shut down its Everyday Texas Hold’em poker game on September 25 and start to issue refunds to players or convert the in-game currency to other Tencent games. The company’s spokesperson suggested that the move was aimed at diverting more resources to other games in its pipeline rather than a response to the intensifying government policy on online games industry.

The Chinese PC online-gaming market experienced a minor yearly increase of 3.2% in 2017, and that growth was entirely driven by Tencent’s legacy titles and Kingsoft’s JX 3 series. The PC games business of other major publishers suffered significant decline. PUBG, meanwhile managed to sell 17 million copies in China via Steam even before the game had been officially launched in the country, highlighting how battle-royale games have replaced MOBA in terms of market attention and industry investment.

Tencent’s PC segment displayed strong recovery this quarter, with an increase of 18.4%, expanding its market share to 71%. Dungeon & Fighter (DNF) was the main growth driver thanks to a Lunar New Year update.

Tencent is building a international version of its PC games distribution platform WeGame, which, for the first time, will put it in direct competition with Valve's Steam platform in markets outside of China. Tencent strategic target is to build its distribution capability outside of China. Meanwhile, Valve's Steam is not officially available in China, but it serves gamers on the mainland from its Hong Kong servers and many games are localised into simplified Chinese to attract Chinese buyers.

Perfect World announced that is working on ‘Steam China’, which indicates an upcoming official launch for the platform in China. According to the agreement, Perfect World will actively promotion the launch and marketing of Steam China, while Valve is to cover software authorization and tech support.

Huya has successfully completed an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $180 million. This comes after the company received a round of investment totaling $462 million, led by Tencent, just back in March 2018.

As announced at its UP2018 conference, Tencent is to invest $16 million in Fortnite-related esports in China. The company has already secured a licensing partnership with BlueHole, the creator of Fortnite's main competitor, Publisher Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), but its China release is delayed.

Tencent’s PC segment delivered poor performance for the quarter, with a decline of 11.6%, but the company retained its leading position with 65% market share. With its focus on the mobile market, the lack of any new hit releases for PC suggests that Dungeon&Fighter (DNF) and League of Legends (LoL) will remain the main revenue sources.

Super Evil Megacorp, the developer of Vainglory, has announced it will partner Alisports, the sports branch of Alibaba Group. Alisports formed the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) in 2016, revealing ambitions to build itself a global presence in the esports industry. Vainglory will join other titles - namely CS:GO, Dota 2, Hearthstone and StarCraft 2 - to become part of the WESG2018 lineup.

Huya announced it raised $461.6million in its latest series B funding round which was led by Tencent on Mar 9. And its major rival Douyu received investment of $632million from Tencent as well. The two streaming platforms hold leading positions in the Chinese eSports streaming markets.

According to a prospectus filed on 2 March, the online entertainment platform covering video, live broadcasting and mobile games plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Bilibili business was initially centered on the Anime, Comic and Games (ACG) industry and has developed into a comprehensive content platform.

Shanda Games confirmed investment of RMB 3 billion ($452million) from Tencent this week. The deal marks the latest games-related investment by Tencent after its acquisition of Supercell. The spokesman from Shanda Games has not revealed the size of stake but suggested that the two companies will expand their partnership beyond online gaming. Also, Shanda Games has indicated it will accelerate the process of becoming an A-shares company (i.e. traded on both the Shanghai and Shenzen stock markets).

Tabikaeru is a freemium mobile game developed by the Japanese company Hit-Point. The game centers on a frog travelling around Japan and sending back snapshots or mementos of its trip. The main gameplay is that players grow and collect clover in a virtual courtyard as in-game currency to afford the frog’s journey. The game, in Japanese only, has risen to the top of the free apps in Apple’s App Store in China, Taiwan and Japan.

IHS Markit's latest report on the consumer augmented and virtual reality markets. This report adds to the coverage of last year's report with additional data and analysis related to the consumer augmented reality market opportunity and also the location-based (out of home) consumer virtual reality market.

Tencent delivered strong PC-related performance, thanks partly to Dungeon & Fighter (DNF), which received major content updates in September. The concurrent release of a DNF anime rejuvenated player engagement, and with it, appetite for spend.